Tools

Robert Downey Jr. looks bored in his third stab at inventor/superhero Tony Stark. So does Gwyneth Paltrow as Tony’s long-suffering wife Pepper Potts. But there are little guided missiles of happiness in director Shane Black’s custodianship of the Marvel Comics franchise. Try Guy Pearce as rival technocrat and chief bad guy Aldrich Killian, or the dazzling action sequences, quite up to summer-giant-robot standards. The best thing about this, though, is Ben Kingsley’s burlesque perf as The Mandarin, a see-through mock-Arab villain. Gist of the piece: Tony is tired of donning the suit and playing the game. We sympathize. Black and Drew Pearce wrote the screenplay (129 min., 2013, rated PG-13)
ByKelly Vance